Kiyoka

[Sareth]

[OOC]Please![/OOC]

[Tiamat]

"Please excuse my traveling companion. He's a bit loud, at times. Well, all the time, really. Feel free to kick him as many times as you feel necessary." Wilson opened his mouth to respond to that statement and Jonathan quickly demonstrated. "Like so. If I'm not mistaken, you're the man who so inconsiderately ran into a broad street and let me see you and the men chasing you."

Jonathan kept an eye on the man's hands, in the event that he had a weapon as well.

"Very inconsiderate indeed. I had to run for quite some time." Looking the man up and down again, and noticing that he wasn't breathing as easily as he could have been, Jonathan added, "But apparently not as long as you. Assuming your 'friends' don't find us here, we should probably be able to catch our breath and make it out of town on one of the ships in the harbor. Well, also assuming you've got the money to pay them, which I certainly don't. There's supposed to be some kind of tour guide around here - I figured I'd join him as a battlemage until I found somewhere nice and quiet."

Jonathan noticed the man was still looking at the cat. "I'd throw this one overboard along the way but he'd just fly back. What's the matter, never seen a talking, flying cat before?"




[OOC]It begins once more![/OOC]

[DarkIntruder]

"What's the matter, never seen a talking, flying cat before?" asked the short man.

"No, I can't say that I have." Roger replied, "Heard of them, but never seen one first hand. I expect that they're few and far between outside of Tsuiraku, and this is only the second time I've been here. Looks like this visit isn't turning out any better then the last one."

Roger turned and slumped down against the side of the building, making sure to keep an eye on the man.

"So I assume those thugs back there spotted you too? Sorry about that. The names Roger. Roger Monteith."

He straightened up, stretched, and adjusted his shoulderbag and helmet, and extended his hand to the man.

"You mentioned a guide that can get us out of Kiyoka? That would probably be a good idea at the moment. The Gewehr's aren't the type to let past wrongs slide."

[Graybeard]

A block away, a shadow stirred, stirred again, returned to silence.

His grasp of the Small Ones' language was still imperfect after all those years, and even with his absurdly acute hearing, he hadn't understood the entire exchange, but he'd gotten enough of it. Springheel. Jackanapes. Yes, they had said those words. He didn't know exactly what they meant, but he'd heard them before, and one thing that they definitely did mean, in some way that he hadn't yet worked out, was his mate. That made them, and their utterers, interesting.

Reflexively he reached behind his back for the bow and quiver that were no longer there, then caught himself. No, that would not do. These Small Ones weren't necessarily The Enemy, might not need to be attacked and destroyed, might even be useful. (But old habits died hard.) Besides, he'd carefully hidden all of his old weapons before venturing into the town; the Thundering Metal Thing that he'd taken from the dead Small One by the river, if it still worked, was his only weapon. (Well, that and his fangs and claws, of course.) He relaxed and resumed listening as the Small Ones performed a ritual that he did not, could not, understand.

Silent, unmoving, he tried to make sense of the Small Ones' language, but between his own limited fluency and the alienness of the minds in the exchange, he could only grasp small fragments. Clearly, there was conflict among the Small Ones. He permitted himself an approving, carefully muffled grunt; conflict, as anyone knew, was good, and made the fighters strong -- those that survived. Perhaps these beings weren't as callow as he'd thought they were ... But their conflicts were their own business, not his. Not another mention of "Springheel" or "Jackanapes," though; the Small Ones' talk had veered in other directions.

His hand fell to the Many-Fathers-God-Wise-Robe that he wore, caressed it in the manner that, among his people, approximated prayer. Yes, the Many Fathers were speaking to him from the Robe. The Small Ones knew something that might lead him back to his mate, but they weren't saying. That, with the wisdom of the Many Fathers, made his actions clear. He would not attack the Small Ones -- now. Rather, he would follow the Small Ones as they went wherever they were going, try to learn more, ferret out the truth of what had happened to his mate. And then, and only then, would he decide what to do. Strike them en masse? Pick them off one by one? Perhaps even let them be, and find his mate and continue his journey? Too early to tell...

He resumed his death-like stillness and settled in to wait.

[Viking-Sensei]

Lucas carefully examined the last bits of paperwork and put them neatly into the large file cabinet. "Well, that's all set then. All the official travel papers are drawn up, as well as some very nice forgeries for the places where we really ought not be going but are going to anyway. I've logged a rough version of our route with the Tsuirakian ministry of foriegn affairs... and I've made arrangements that we'll check in by Warp Gate Mail every so often in case anyone would get any bright ideas that we're dead and start making a move on our personal posessions."

Bob hovered over, not quite flapping his wings enough to give the realistic appearance of flying, and landed on Lucas' head. "I'm equipped with a MPS tracking system as well, so if we don't check in for more than a two month period of time, authorities can look for our bodies."

"Ahem." Lucas cleared his throat. "Not that there will be any bodies, no. I'm proud to say that of all the walkabouts I've lead, there's never been a single fatality in my parties. Four people haven't "come back", however three of those were by choice... and the fourth one will eventually come back, once he's done serving his sentence for what he did to... well, ok, technically *did with*... the town mayor's daughter. So, do either of you need to make any more stops, or are we ready to roll?"

[Sareth]

I shrugged. "The sooner the better. I've got everything I need right here." I patted my many layered clothes, causing an errant knife to fall and stick point first into the floor. Swiftly I bent and retrieved it, tucking it back away. I shrugged.

This didn't sound to bad at all. All I had to do was travel along, pretend to be a nice tourist, and keep moving until I was sure my trail was so convoluted the Enisgerium and the Gewehr had no idea where I was. Then I could ditch the luggage and get back to business.

"Where are we going first, and how are we getting there?"

[Graybeard]

He waited.

The ritual had died down, whatever it was. The Small Ones' habits of blowing through tubes of metal, wood or bone, and scraping bits of animal gut against each other, didn't mean much to him, but they certainly drew a crowd, and crowds meant a greater chance of detection, which would be bad. Fortunately, they were too busy squirming and gyrating in their own odd ways to notice him in the distant shadows.

As the Small Ones began to drift away, he detected a familiar odor, heard small footsteps in the alley behind him. He knew the child Small One was there long before he saw the boy, and certainly long before the boy saw him. Truly the Many Fathers were blessing him; the one Small One who knew about his presence in town was also the only child of the town who'd not yet been whipped into a frenzy of hatred for trolls, didn't detest him and his kind as man-eating monsters, was actually someone to talk to -- and listen to. He waited for the child to come close and speak, which he eventually did.

"Grope? Are you okay?"

He'd learned to keep his use of the Small One's language to a minimum, partly to conceal his limited fluency, but mainly because he knew the effect it had on others, hearing familiar sounds made by a vocal apparatus that was, to put it mildly, different from their own. He remembered that an acceptable response was to grunt out something close to the war name his mate's brother used (his mate... the thought lingered), and replied, "Mmm ... hmmm." It sounded wrong to him, but the child was satisfied.

"I brung ya somthin' ta eat." The boy reached into a pocket and extracted the corpse of a wharf rat, handed it to him, waited. The child expected a response, and again he remembered the rituals the Small Ones followed. "Thank...you," he rumbled. (Well, not quite. Trolls' vocal apparatus wasn't constructed to produce nasalized vowels, and the result sounded more like controlled flatulence than Small One speech. But the boy was satisfied with it, even if he suppressed a snicker.) He started to strip a bit of flesh from the corpse and rub it on the Many-Fathers-God-Wise-Robe as usual, then caught himself and simply consumed the rat whole. Yes, the kid seemed unusually tolerant, but experience had taught him that it was a good idea not to let Small Ones see his tribe's religious practices, and besides, how much Many Fathers Wisdom was there in a dead rat?

The boy shuffled his feet and turned away while Grope chewed, then spoke again. "My Uncle Lukey is goin' out on a job. Are you gonna go with him?" This was news. Was "Uncle Lukey" one of the Small Ones who'd been talking about Springheel and Jackanapes? He thought he'd seen the man on the perimeter of the conversation, but he wasn't sure. He temporized with a shrug of his shoulders (oddly, it meant the same in the Small Ones' culture as in his own), saw it had no effect, remembered the language, rumbled "I...don't...know."

The second bout of verbal farting got a chuckle from the child, but he seemed to understand. "I'll miss you, Gropey." He didn't wait for a response, but turned and ran back down the alley to wherever he had come from.

[Graybeard]

The troll listened intently, trying to make out what the Small Ones were saying. The conversation was muffled, of course, coming through the back wall of the building, and he still struggled with nuances of the language. Nevertheless, he was pretty sure that the Small Ones were still getting their act together to start whatever trip they were planning, and weren't going to be leaving town quite yet.

Good. That would give him time to hunt.

He was ridiculously, unnaturally, lucky. No more than five minutes out of town, he caught the scent of a wild pig, and only a moment later, he saw the animal. It was a young, stupid beast, even by the undemanding standards of porcine intelligence, and snuffled among the roots and tubers where field met forest, unaware of the predator bearing down on it. He wouldn't even need his sword for this one, let alone his bow and arrow, which added a pleasing aesthetic component to the hunt. A quick grab and slash across the throat with claw-tipped fingers, a bite on the neck, and that was that.

He paused (of course) to wipe his gory fingers on the Many-Fathers-God-Wisdom-Robe and tear off a patch of the pig's skin. For a brief moment he hesitated over the ritual; only the females of his kind could shape the magic to meld the skin into the Robe, which was what really needed to be done, and there wasn't another female troll on the entire mini-continent, as far as he could tell, besides his mate ... and that was his basic problem. Well, he decided, let's be optimistic. He secured the scrap of skin in the pouch at his waist before eating his fill.

And felt good about it. Already he could feel the Wisdom of the pig enhancing the Many Fathers Wisdom, as it in turn enhanced his own. He knew a little more -- not much, but a little -- about the land surrounding Kiyoka, by virtue of absorbing the pig's knowledge, and he was pretty sure that he could follow the Small Ones if they did leave without him. Body and soul (such as it was) thus nourished, he stealthily made his way back to the town to see whether the Small Ones had got off their collective asses and set off to wherever they were going.

[OOC: Come on, somebody do something in town so that I can quit with the temporizing!]

[DarkIntruder]

[OOC] Sorry Tiamat, I'm going to hijack your character for a but. We need to get this thing moving. Also, I feel wholely inadequate, following Greybeard's posts.[OOC]

The short man grudgingly reached up and shook Roger's hand.

"Roger is it? I'm Jonathan Zeeve. This waste of magical energy", he gestured to the cat, who stuck out his tounge at the pair, "is Winston."

Jonathan leaned back against the wall and sighed. "So those were Gewehr's eh? I've heard of them before, but never seen one. What kind of silly thing did you do to raise their ire like that?"

Roger narrowed his eyes. "I think that this is neither the time nor place for that.", he answered in a tone that he hoped would give the short man the hint to drop it. "Right now, we had better concentrate on getting out of here, because you don't want to know what would happen if they caught up to us. You mentioned a tour guide. Do you know where he might be found?"

Jonathan scanned the surrounding area, attempting to get his bearings. "Actually," he said, pointing to a side street heading towards the city centre, "Iif I recall correctly, he's located just up that stree..."

With a sudden whipcrack, a gunshot rang out and tore away a chunk of masonry just above Zeeve's head.

The three thugs appeared at the far end of the alleyway. "Don't let them get away!" shouted the tall one, as he raised his gun again.

Roger grabbed Jonathan by the arm and together with the cat the pair sprinted towards the side road. Turning the corner, they flew down the street, while behind them, the sound of footsteps and swearing reverberated from the mouth of the alley.

Suddenly, Zeeve yanked Roger and Winston to the side and towards a small dusty office building. Roger had just enough time to read the dirty sign above the door, ("Heer Thar Be Draggons") before he was roughly thrust through the door.

To find himself staring down the barrels of a pair of matching pistols.

[Graybeard]

He hadn't even made it back into town yet when he heard the distinctive sound of a Thundering Metal Thing in the distance -- in the direction of the Small Ones that he wanted, needed to observe. This, in all likelihood, was bad.

He felt the strange metal artifact of the Small Ones in his equipment pouch, decided the time wasn't right for experimenting with it. He quickly excavated his bow, quiver and sword from the pit under the pine tree where he had hidden them, and placed the Thundering Metal Thing in their place. For a moment he considered hiding the Many-Fathers-God-Wisdom-Robe there as well, but decided against it: if he was seen, the one thing the townspeople might find more intimidating than a nattily-dressed troll was a naked troll, and who knows, there might be Wisdom to be gained from the Small Ones who died (and make no mistake, there were going to be deaths) where the noise was coming from.

Being nine feet tall and weighing 500 pounds might make one an imposing physical presence and formidable in a fight, but it doesn't make it so easy to hide, particularly in a city. However, he knew enough of the Small Ones' behavior to know that they don't look above them in times of trouble, callow fools that they are, so he scanned quickly for a building with a roof substantial enough to support his weight that might offer a view of what was going on. There, that stone structure should do the trick. He didn't take the time to read the sign over its door --
Veracian Church of Our Lord Luminosita
Mission to the Faithless
Kiyoka District Temple
-- but reached up to a low-hanging spot on the eaves, to hoist himself to the top. Quickly but quietly, he moved to where he thought he could see the conflict that was developing. Nothing clear yet; whatever was going on had moved inside (although he could still smell the man-stink and the odor of the Thundering Metal Thing in the alley), and he wasn't going into a Small Ones building even if he could fit, which he couldn't. He extracted his bow and notched an arrow, and settled down to wait.

But not for long. The roof of the stone structure wasn't as sturdy as the building itself was. Specifically, it wasn't sturdy enough to hold his weight, and with a loud crack disturbingly like the sound of a Thundering Metal Thing, a beam gave way under him. His reflexes were on edge anyway, and he had plenty of time to roll to a safe, spread-eagled position before the section of roof caved in, but any bloody fool of a Small One could tell now that something was happening on top of the building.

Well, crap.

[OOC: Back over to you guys. Assume this is happening a very few minutes, no more than 5, after the end of DI's last contribution.]